Grace Crunican in line for post of BART manager

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Photo: Mike Urban, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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Grace Crunican (cq), with the Seattle Department of Transportation, calls attention to a large volume of review data the city had to wrangle from the state regarding viaduct alternatives during a public forum held at Town Hall in Seattle, Wash., Thursday February 22, 2007. Seattle Post-Intelligencer Photo by Mike Urban
Ran on: 08-03-2011
Grace Crunican was a federal transit official in the 1990s.
Ran on: 08-03-2011
Grace Crunican was a federal transit official in the 1990s.
Ran on: 09-01-2011
Grace Crunican is a transit veteran who is familiar with the federal funding process.
Ran on: 09-01-2011
Grace Crunican is a transit veteran who is familiar with the federal funding process.
Ran on: 09-01-2011
Grace Crunican is a transit veteran who is familiar with the federal funding process.
Ran on: 09-04-2011
Grace Crunican says she'll bring a straightforward style to her new job as general manager of BART.
Ran on: 09-04-2011
Grace Crunican says she'll bring a straightforward style to her new job as general manager of BART. less

Grace Crunican (cq), with the Seattle Department of Transportation, calls attention to a large volume of review data the city had to wrangle from the state regarding viaduct alternatives during a public forum ... more

Photo: Mike Urban, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Grace Crunican in line for post of BART manager

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BART directors have tentatively settled on a former No. 2 at the Federal Transit Administration to take over as the transit agency's general manager - someone they hope can bring in the big bucks from Washington.

Grace Crunican, a transit consultant who most recently spent eight years as director of transportation in Seattle, could be confirmed by the BART board as early as Aug. 11, we're told.

The feeling among BART directors is that there are plenty of people already in the organization who can run the trains - but that what they need in these lean times is someone who knows how to get federal money.

BART especially needs someone who can help the agency come up with $3.4 billion to replace its fleet of train cars. With its cars pushing an average age of more than 30 years, the fleet is one of the oldest in the country.

Crunican, who was spied at the going-away party in Oakland for recently forced-out BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger, would bring some serious transportation credentials to the job.

She was director of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, a mass transit advocacy group, before joining the Clinton administration as the No. 2 at the Federal Transit Administration, which oversees public transportation spending.

She left her job as transportation director in Seattle last year after a series of missteps in keeping the city's roads open during winter storms made her a political liability - so maybe it's a good thing BART's problems don't include snowdrifts on the tracks.

According to sources, BART directors recently spent two days interviewing seven men and two women for the top post before reaching a consensus on Crunican. She was not available for comment Tuesday.

Psst: San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has been in talks with noted political consultant Ace Smith about managing his mayoral campaign, should he decide to run.

In recent years, Smith - the son of former San Francisco District Attorney Arlo Smith - has emerged as one of the biggest names in state politics. He oversaw the attorney general campaigns of both Jerry Brownand Kamala Harris, as well as Gavin Newsom's run for lieutenant governor last year.

Smith, who declined to comment on this item, got his start in opposition research, digging up dirt on candidates.

One of his first big jobs was on the Bill Clinton presidential campaigns, where he was given the job of excavating dirt on Clinton himself.

Later, Smith engineered Hillary Rodham Clinton's comeback primary wins in California and Texas in 2008 - campaigns in which he sent her husband, the former president, out to shopping malls to speak from the back of a pickup truck.

Smith is known for running a bare-bones, low-overhead operation and zeroing in on younger voters who see themselves as neither Democrats nor Republicans.

Progressive pullback: San Francisco's progressive supervisors have dropped all three of the ballot measures they had planned to put on the November ballot.

Their stated reasons for pulling the amendment to Care Not Cash, the ban on renting out parks facilities and the antiapartment-demolition measure vary. But off the record, the feeling is that the initiatives were either poorly written or destined for defeat.

Supervisor and mayoral candidate John Avalossaid he didn't think the ballot drop was that big of a deal. "We're still going to keep working on the issues," he said.

On the other hand, Supervisor Mark Farrell was ready to take on the progressives and seemed half-sad that he won't get the chance.

Campaign consultant "Jim Rossand I had already been meeting with neighborhood groups and small businesses to organize a campaign against any dismantling of Care Not Cash," Farrell said. "We were fired up and ready to go."

Farrell said the same group was ready to roll against the park measure, which he called so poorly written that it might have banned birthday parties from city playgrounds.

One person who is probably breathing a sigh of relief is Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who didn't return calls Tuesday. He's one of the board's progressives, but he's also facing a tough race for sheriff and couldn't have been looking forward to fielding questions about three hot-button issues between now and November.

Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or e-mail matierandross@sfchronicle.com.